Prior art floor machines typically have a motor mounted on a base consisting of a frame and skirt assembly with a handle attached to the base. The prior art designs with the handle attached to the base result in inefficiencies from one of two standpoints. Under a number of prior art floor machine designs, the attachment of the handle to the frame is such that it is desirable to ship such floor machines with the handle attached and standing in an upright position extending upwardly from the base frame/skirt assembly with the motor mounted thereon. As a result of the handle extending to a height of two or more feet above the top of the motor, a shipping carton for packing and shipping this type of prior art machine will contain a significant amount of wasted space thereby increasing the cost of shipping over that required if there were no significant wasted space.
Although some prior art machines have attempted to overcome the wasted space problem by providing a handle which may be folded from (1) a position extending generally upwardly from the base and generally perpendicular to the surface to be cleaned to (2) a position substantially parallel to the surface to be cleaned, such foldable handles are complex and expensive to manufacture.
When the handle is assembled to the base and does not have the capability of being folded to a position parallel to the floor, the machine, when packaged in a shipping container having rectangular sides will result in significant wasted space and an overall package size that restricts shipping options. Attempts to ship the handle and base assembly separately to be assembled upon receipt have been, for the most part, commercially unsuccessful due to numerous linkage points between the handle and the base. In the prior art, it was found that such linkages are necessary to enable handle adjustment and ensure a robust interface between the handle and the base. However, the complexity of such assembly operation was not well received by customers.